Detective Jane Wright eased out of her car, identified herself to the officer on duty, and picked her way through the throng of flashing lights, curious onlookers, and uniforms. It’d been three months since she’d joined the new team in the Major Case Squad tasked to investigate crime against prominent people in the city. Who’d have known she’d be this busy?
She hadn’t even wrapped up Horace Gibson’s murder yet and here she was, at a new crime scene. And this one promised to be even bigger than the Gibson case.
Arlene Hampton was close friends with the mayor and the commissioner—close enough for Jane to get a phone call kicking her out of bed, telling her to get her ass down here immediately.
She hoisted her collar up against the snow and quickened her step to the welcoming door across the road. Inside Hampton’s apartment building it was warm, the precinct detective probably the middle-aged guy with dirty shoes who looked like he’d been boozing it up until he got called to the scene.
“Micky Fulsom,” he said in an unexpected Southern drawl.
From close by she could see flecks of sour milk on his jacket. Not boozing then. More likely had a little one at home struggling to sleep.
Fulsom’s eyes trailed hers. “Twins.”
She pulled a face signaling sympathy. “Better run me through it, then you can get home.”
He laughed. “Think I’d prefer sleeping in a holding cell right now.”
“That can be arranged.”
They walked to a quiet corner. “Arlene Hampton is in apartment number forty-five.” He pointed to a security guard giving his statement to a uniform. “Guard there saw two men go up to her apartment. Invited guests it seemed. Hampton buzzed them up. Few minutes later, two women showed up. Claimed they were Hampton’s personal security detail and that she wasn’t answering her phone. They had security access for the door and elevator so they went up.”
Fulsom raised his eyebrows, hitting his notepad with a cheap yellow pen. “This is where it gets weird. CCTV of the lobby and elevators died two minutes later. Just like that. Guard heard shots. Neighbors too. We got five nine-one-one calls. Two, three minutes later, more shots in the basement. Basement’s got CCTV, but that’s been down since yesterday. Whoever shot up the basement, may have taken the fight to the street, it seemed. We have broken auto glass about four hundred yards down the street. Two parked cars streaked with black paint. No luck with CCTV outside the building yet.”
Fulsom gestured to a glass encased room behind him and the two women sitting there. It seemed like a small kitchen and bathroom, probably for use by the building’s security guards. “Unis showed up at number forty-five. Caught this chick administering CPR. Guard says she’s one of the two women who said they were on Hampton’s security detail. Other one is in the wind.”
“And let me guess, she’s not talking, right?” Wright pointed to the tall, athletic woman with the black hair and neutral, calm face.
“How did you know it was her?” Fulsom smirked.
“Oh, I have a nose for troublemakers,” Wright said.
“Okay. Two out of two. Now strike me out and tell me what’s funny about the woman in black?”
“Apart from the fact that’s she’s like six two?”
“Yeah?”
Wright contemplated her. “Nah. Don’t know. Tell me.”
“Clean as a whistle. Perfect record. Not even a parking ticket to her name. Saved Hampton’s life only for her to check out in the ambulance. DOA at the hospital.”
“Shit.” Jane wiped at her mouth. She wished she still smoked. She stared at Fulsom who looked like he was holding something back. Something juicy. “Yeah? And?”
“Our girl here policed her brass. Picked it all up before she went into the apartment.”
“Only hers?”
“Yes.”
Wright turned on her heels. She stared at the woman with the dark eyes looking right at her. “Now why the hell would you do that unless you had something to hide?”
* * *
Isabelle stood on the sidewalk, hidden between a handful of diehard onlookers watching as the cops finally opened the street to traffic. It was after four in the morning and her feet were freezing in her heels. She was exhausted beyond belief, but she couldn’t leave. Jam had told her to go back to Ma Soeur, but she didn’t want to leave Andy here alone. Jam had assured her that Andy was fine and in good hands, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes. She got her into this predicament—she and her messed up dreams.
Isabelle waited as the uniforms packed up and disappeared, the only crime scene tape remaining the one blocking the entrance to Arlene Hampton’s building. Arlene, whose murder she supposedly saw, but did not predict for tonight. And not like this, with Andy here.
She wrapped her arms around her body swaddled in a long black coat. She felt like a fraud. A liar. The most powerful dreamer since the 1400s? Bullshit. All of it. She belonged in an institution. Maybe it was time to face the truth.
She trudged back to the SUV as the curious crowd thinned out. She ignored Jam’s repeated calls. If they wanted to cut her off when the bad stuff happened, she would cut them off too.
She’d wait here for Andy to make sure she was okay and then go back to Ma Soeur to pack her bags and leave.